Museo de Bella Artes de Álava

The beginning: A Christmas morning

Last January, we traveled to Vitoria. It was a cold, nice morning and we had a lot of fun. We visited the New Cathedral of Vitoria, The Fine Arts Museum, and some people even went to practice a little ice skating.

We also discovered three people. They were going to become very close friends to the team of Patrimonio para Jóvenes. The Bishop from Navarra, Cadena Eleta, and the architects Julian Apraiz and Javier Luque.

The idea

The Bishop Eleta from Navarra and the buildings made by Apraiz (some of them with Luque) are all around this area. Not far away from us.

The students María Oderiz and Marta Aparicio earned the scholarship to prepare about this interesting topic. After this, they had to present their investigation to the members of Patrimonio.

Here you have a little abstract, especially with pictures about this story.

First, Pitillas

It´s a small village in Navarra. There is a little museum with some of the belongings from Cadena Eleta. He donated them to his village.

There is also this house, called “the Bishop´s house”. But actually, it was never his property. It was his sister’s house. Her name was Margarita (Daisy) and this is the reason for what you can see painted daisies on the roof . (By the way, done in a stunning ceramic).

Bilbao :

We went from a small village to a big city as Bilbao. There, in one of the most important streets, Gran Via, Apraiz built the “Banco de España” (Spain Bank). In the middle of the financial area of Bilbao, it is a building whose decoration reminds us of classical antiquity.

The inside has suffered many transformations according to the times. Anyway it has the smart, majestic and cool atmosphere from the beginning of the 20th century.

It’s amazing to discover its big dome made of stained glass. It was made by the Maumejean factory, a French factory of stained glass seen several times at Apraiz’s buildings.

I want to thank all the staff from Banco de España in Bilbao for their attention with us, especially to Ascension, who spent part of the morning with us.

Also thanks to Obra Insignia Company, who helped us with this visit.

I suppose Apraiz was so happy and proud about the result of his job in Bilbao. Check out how ostentatious is his sign on the wall of the main entrance of the bank.

Laguardia

And let’s go again to a village. Now to the area called “Rioja Alavesa” famous because of its wineries. At Laguardia, Apraiz built a hospital. Today we can only see some parts of the building. Today is a secondary school. Anyway, we could see how different is the aesthetic of this building compared to the one of the bank.

The hospital (currently a school) is located in front of a beautiful landscape. Everything thought in order to have a very healthy atmosphere for patients

It’s nice to read from newspapers of these times: The hospital was provided with all the modern advantages (from that time) such as disinfectant treatment for laundry.

Laguardia has also a great artistic heritage, as the “Santa María de los Reyes”. This is what we called “The visualuniverse of Apraiz”.

With this, we want to explain that Apraiz visited himself very artistic and historical places. He knew the Gothic, before going to the “ Neo-gothic”.

Burgos :

In this city famous because of its Cathedral and because is on the way of Saint James, Apraiz had also made history.

He took part in the restoration of the large spires of the cathedral. Maria and Marta worked on this issue. They read about what architects did at the beginning of 20 century.

We also visited the new archiepiscopal palace built again with Cadena Eleta, and Apraiz and Luque.

We also thank to the municipal archives of Burgos, who helped us a lot when looking for information and documents.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to the family Apraiz who received us in Vitoria at the end of this job. It was so nice to meet his grandson and great grandson. Here they are, with Marta and María.

At Mencos Palace

At the end of September, Marta and Maria gave an informal chat about this trip in Tafalla (Navarra) at the Mencos Palace. Here you have some moments of this day and the very nice meeting we had.